Analysis of the informal reasoning modes of preservice primary teachers when arguing about a socio-scientific issue on nuclear power during a role play

The use of nuclear power is a socio-scientific issue that is controversial in many areas. Concerns of nuclear power touch on health effects, environmental impacts, employment concerns and energy supply; arguments both for and against it are easily generated. This paper examines the specific aspects addressed by preservice primary teachers in their arguments during their participation in a roleplaying activity on the SSI of nuclear power stations closures in Spain. This was done in order to better understand informal reasoning modes, as well as the possible effect of the roles defended and the design of the staging of the role play. To this end, the transcripts of four role plays were analysed. The data analysis was carried out by open coding, extracting different categories of analysis that were classified into three different informal reasoning modes: environmental, financial and social. The results showed that participants used more environmental-oriented arguments than financial and social ones. Differences in informal reasoning modes were found between some roles and between the two parts of the staging. Some educational implications of these results are discussed, such as providing more information to the participants before the roleplaying activity and emphasising the scaffolding of the social aspects when designing the role play.Partial funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málag

Preservice secondary science teachers' teaching proposals to address a socially acute question

Teaching about socially acute questions seems beneficial for different aspects of student learning and its use in classrooms can be encouraged by including it in future teachers’ training. This paper analyses teaching proposals made by preservice secondary teachers to address the socially acute question of the dominant model of meat production and consumption. The analysis was carried out in terms of the phases addressed for the inquiry and the conceptions of knowledge and pedagogical strategies adopted. The results show that the proposals are focused on information gathering and analysis, highlighting the controversies (engaged conception of knowledge) with the aim to develop critical thinking by teaching students to argue through the exploration of different positions on the SAQ (critical pedagogical strategies). The educational implications of these results are discussed in this work.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

A training for life. A didactic approach

Hemos elegido la limpieza y cuidado corporal haciendo hincapié dientes y pies por creerlo necesario y básico para la higiene y crecimiento personal, ya que las enfermedades bucales pueden afectar a todo el organismo, del mismo modo que las enfermedades generales pueden crear lesiones en la boca. Por otro lado al no tener conocimiento del cómo, o qué tratamiento hay que tener de nuestros pies, podrían ocasionar un malestar del cuerpo, al ser éstos la base donde recae todo el peso corporal.We have chosen the personal hygiene and care of the body insisting more on teeth and feet, because we think that is necessary and basic for personal hygiene and growth. Mouth illnesses can affect all the body organs in the same way that general illnesses can create lesions in the mouth. On the other hand, as we do not have any knowledge about how or what medical treatment we must have on our feet, this could produce an indisposition in our bodies, as the feet are the base where the body weight falls.peerReviewe

Pre-service teachers’ ideas about obtaining electricity in nuclear power stations in a role play context

This study examined whether participation in a role play on the socio-scientific issue of the use of nuclear power had an impact on pre-service primary teachers’ ideas regarding the process of obtaining electricity in a nuclear power station. Before and after the role play, 78 pre-service primary teachers were asked to describe this process to analyze the ideas they displayed about the stages involved in it. The results showed, overall, an increased presence of more scientifically informed ideas in some of these stages following the role play, although a number of nonscientifically informed ideas persisted, for example, regarding the way in which heat is obtained or the final transformation of energy into electricity. These results support the potential value of role play for developing more scientifically informed ideas, although some modifications of the role play are recommended for further development of them.This study was supported by the European Social Fund and Spain’s National Research Agency through a researcher training contract (PRE2018-083328) as part of the Excellence in R+D project “Developing the competences of secondary and university students in relation to everyday problems through the scientific practices of argumentation, inquiry and modelling” (EDU2017-82197-P), by the Spanish National Plan R+D+i Project, entitled “Citizens with critical thinking: A challenge for teachers in science education” (PID2019-105765GA-I00), and the support for open publishing by the University of Malaga

Preservice primary teachers’ argumentative skills during their participation in a role play on nuclear energy

This work presents preliminary results of a study on the use of role play on a socioscientific issue for the practice of argumentative skills of preservice primary teachers. The socioscientific issue addressed was the agreement of the Spanish Government and some energy companies for the closure of all Spanish nuclear power plants between 2025 and 2035. The structure and topics of the arguments used during the role-playing discussion were analysed. The results show that the participants use a large amount and variety of evidence and, to a lesser extent, formulate conclusions and justifications. Most of the arguments were on environmental topics, followed by the financial topics and social topics. Finally, the role play seems to be very adequate for the practice of the use of evidence, although the analysis of their quality remains to be done.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Influence of the role defended during a role-playing on pre-service elementary science teachers' scientific knowledge

This work shows a study about the influence of the role defended during the participation in a role-playing game about nuclear energy on the pre-service elementary science teachers’ scientific knowledge. 74 pre-service teachers participated in four role-playing games and a mixed approach was followed for data analysis, through a pre-test/post-test. The results suggest that the pre-service teachers who had to defend a role with a position against their personal point of view could achieve greater scientific knowledge learning. Furthermore, some limitations of this study are discuss.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Estudio de la actividad de 7Be en aire

En este trabajo se presenta, en una primera parte, la determinación de la concentración de la actividad de Be7 con las muestras de aire recogidas por la Estación de Muestreo de Zaragoza durante varios meses de 2020 y 2021. En la segunda parte del trabajo se realiza el estudio de la variación de concentración de actividad de Be7 en función de diversos parámetros geográficos, estacionales o relacionados con el ciclo solar, utilizando los datos históricos de la actividad de Be7 ofrecidos por el CSN y por el JRC (Joint Research Centre) Data Catalogue.<br /

The role-playing game as a teaching strategy on environmental awareness development. A Design-Based Research.

Este trabajo muestra el desarrollo de experiencias de juegos de rol sobre la producción de energía nuclear a lo largo de tres cursos académicos, cuya metodología se ha ido modificando teniendo en cuenta los resultados obtenidos en cada una de ellas mediante una investigación basada en el diseño. Los sucesivos cambios metodológicos han mostrado mejoras en cuanto a los resultados obtenidos en cada experiencia respecto a las anteriores, concluyéndose que el juego de rol se muestra como una estrategia que favorece tanto el aprendizaje de conceptos científicos básicos como el tratamiento de aspectos concernientes a la conciencia ambiental, fomentando la práctica de habilidades argumentativas y poniendo en juego opiniones, creencias, actitudes y posiciones de muy diversa índole.This work shows the development of role-playing game experiences on nuclear energy production over three academic years and whose methodology has been modified based on the results obtained in each of them, through a design-based research. The methodological changes have shown improvements in terms of the results obtained in each experience with respect to the previous ones, assuming the role-playing game as a strategy that favours the learning of basic scientific concepts, such as the treatment of aspects concerning environmental awareness, encouraging the practice of argumentative skills and implies opinions, beliefs, attitudes and positions of a very diverse nature

Learning Physics with Wolfram Alpha

We believe we are at the beginning of a new Big Bang. This great explosion places us at the dawn of a new era in learning Physics, and we would like to participate in this fascinating process. Mobile devices are exponentially growing amongst our students, so we are convinced that they must be used to promote active learning. In this work, we will focus on several apps from Wolfram Research Company: Wolfram Alpha, Wolfram Alpha Viewer, Physics I and Physics II. All of them have many possibilities to achieve an autonomous and active learning. These apps allow users to select different options from a specific menu, enter values of the required parameters and the app calculates by itself the magnitude involved in the process. In addition, these apps also allow us to study the major laws of Physics, to look for the different units of the International System of Units or even to manage the most common physical constants. We are convinced that there is a necessity of developing more applications for smartphones that will empower a meaningful learning of Physics using apps for the operating systems iOS, Android, Windows Phone and those that arise in the future. This opportunity, which is provided to us by the new technologies, cannot be unexploited. We must strongly engage into this topic to achieve a meaningful learning.AB thanks the “Generalitat Valenciana” of Spain (project PROMETEOII/2015/015) and the "Vicerrectorado de Tecnologías de la Información" of the University of Alicante, Spain (project GITE-09006-UA)